


all the stars are closer

by scorpionGrass



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Hollow Bastion (Kingdom Hearts), heavily reliant on FFVII canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-05-03 10:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14566713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass
Summary: Standing atop the winding spires of the old castle in Hollow Bastion was the closest sensation to standing in Da Chao’s palm that Yuffie could find.





	1. .prologue

Yuffie knows the old castle is crawling with shadowy Heartless that would devour her in seconds, but it doesn’t stop her from abandoning her post at the Bailey and running through the crystal fissure just to get a closer look.

“Keep an eye on it,” Squall had told her.

She kept both eyes on it, peeled and fascinated.

Something about it cried out to her, resonated in her bones and echoed in her heart as she stood at the edge of the cliff watching the Heartless spill from the entrance and shuffle around the perimeter.

_ Closer _ .

It’s been a over a year since she had fought in that castle, alongside Squall and Sora. A year, but it never felt like this before. It was a husk now, of shadows and the last thoughts of magic withering away. The Heartless have no master to follow anymore, stumbling over each other idly.

She’s about to jump down into the abyss, take it at a run, when:

“There you are.”

Yuffie snaps to attention, back straight. “Uh, haha, hey Squall!”

“That’s Leon,” he corrects. “What are you doing out here? The view from the Bailey is fine, it’s not like your eyesight is failing.”

She doesn’t know whether to tell him about the feeling, the one that drags her from the scaffolds of their restoration efforts out here to the castle. “Thought I saw something, but they’re still directionless dummies,” she says instead, a cheery smile on her lips. “Nothing to worry about!”

He frowns at her in the long pause that follows, and she widens her smile. “Okay, if that’s what you wanna go with this time.”

“Sure is!”

Squall sighs. “Let’s head back. Aerith’s worried about you.”

“She’s always worried,” Yuffie complains, but she trails after Squall anyway.

They both know she’ll be back soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Standing atop the winding spires of the old castle in Hollow Bastion was the closest sensation to standing in Da Chao’s palm that Yuffie could find.

Wutai was an effort all her own. She was the only person there who wanted to see things change. To go back to the glory days all the boring old adults kept going on and on about and doing nothing to get back. But Hollow Bastion was all Squall.

He threw himself into the restoration project, and everyone couldn’t help but follow along.

If Gaia hadn’t been taken by Heartless, she wonders if anyone would’ve ever followed her.

The town in the distance bustles, chimneys pouring out snow-white smoke. She can imagine Squall on one of the scaffolds. He would be next to Cid, learning exactly how to use wrenches and hammers. Yuffie grins at the memory of Cid’s face when Squall first told him he didn’t know the first thing about rebuilding.

“So you’re tellin’ me you want to rebuild a town, but you’ve never built  _ anything _ before?”

There was a long, awkward pause that Yuffie relished in because for once, Squall was the one looking like a total dumbass (and sometimes it feels like she’s the only one who’s aware of just how deeply stupid he is on a daily basis).

“Yes.”

Cid clapped his hand over Squall’s shoulder. “Well, fuck it. You wanna do this? No better time to learn.”

Would the citizens of Wutai have given her, a princess with barely any political experience, that same chance to learn and do something great? But it doesn’t really matter, since Gaia has long disappeared into whatever void the Heartless drown worlds into.

Yuffie’s PHS rings loudly from her back pocket and she nearly loses her balance on the tower. She slips it out and swipes to answer, putting on her best I-totally-didn’t-just-almost-fall-into-a-pit-of-Heartless voice. “‘Sup, Squall?”

“It’s Leon,” he responds as usual. “Where are you?”

“On my break!”

“Mhm.”

“What? Am I not allowed those now?”

Squall sighs, and Yuffie can imagine the way he always pinches the bridge of his nose on either side of his jagged scar. “It was Tifa’s turn to cook breakfast at Merlin’s today if you’re hungry. After that, I need you in town. We’re gonna find out what materials we need to synthesize some more stuff with the moogle.”

“Ooh, so you want to me to go scouting later?” Scouting is a bajillion times more fun than lugging bricks up and down stairs and nailing boards together, which amounts to all the things he’s given her to do so far.

“Yeah. Better off collecting than stuck here, right?”

Yuffie grins. “I’ll grab some grub and head over. See ya!”

~

Merlin’s house is a mess, but not in the usual Merlin way of being messy. Blueprints are scattered all over the dining table, rolled up scrolls of to-do lists and to-buy lists litter the counters. Tifa stands in the middle of it all, an exasperated look on her face that lights up when she spots Yuffie coming in.

“Hey sweetie, want something to eat?”

“Hell yes,” Yuffie says, bounding toward her. “Whatcha got?”

“The basics. eggs, toast, coffee…” Tifa suddenly pins her with the mothering look Yuffie recognizes from AVALANCHE, from Traverse Town, the one that always made her feel immediately guilty on sight. “Leon said you left this morning without eating a thing.”

Caught. No wonder he mentioned the food.

“Scouting is tough, you know,” Tifa continues. “You can’t go out there on an empty stomach.”

“Aw, relax Teef! I just don’t do breakfast,” Yuffie says, trying to brush it off. “I’ll eat a big lunch if it’ll make ya feel better?”

“It would.”

Yuffie grabs a plate and holds it out to her. “Then pile ‘er up!”

As Tifa sets two slices of toast and sunny-side up eggs on her plate, Yuffie grabs a seat at the dining table and clears the spot of all the paperwork. She feels jittery, ready to take off and scout, but if she tries she knows Tifa will stop her before she even gets to the door.

Something about being a bartender on Gaia. Reflexes to catch dine-and-dashers, or just slippery drunks.

Tifa sets a loaded plate on the cleared spot and Yuffie grins at the sight of toast, eggs, and a bowl of her favourite sugar-spiked cereal. “Thanks for the food!” she says, digging in enthusiastically.

“So you haven’t lost your appetite,” Tifa notes.

“Nah, just not a breakfast person like I said!” Yuffie says. “So hey, Teef, ever think about putting a bar in those rebuilding plans?”

Tifa’s shoulders hunch up the slightest bit at that. “I thought about it,” she says reluctantly. “Cloud doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

“What? Why not?”

Tifa drags out the chair beside Yuffie’s and sits down, fingers interlacing over her lap. “Well, it’s been destroyed twice. Seventh Heaven. First by Shin-Ra, then by the Heartless. He thinks the bar is bad luck.”

“Third time’s the charm, right?” Yuffie says with her trademark optimism. “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen when we’ve beaten the bad guys?”

“They always come back,” Tifa says darkly. “Or at least, that’s what Cloud says. He’s still searching.”

“For Sephiroth?”

“Yeah,” Tifa says quietly, rolling around the promise ring on her finger. “Cloud, he doesn’t look like it but he cherishes what he has. Sephiroth always tries to take it all away.”

“Yeah and we always take it back!” Yuffie argues.

“We do,” Tifa says, pressing her lips together. “But Cloud doesn’t want to lose anything else, so he keeps fighting. Maybe if I don’t rebuild the bar, there’ll be one less thing Cloud needs to fight for.”

Yuffie doesn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit. But Tifa is already up from her seat, chattering about budget talks with Scrooge are going well and how Squall will probably be back soon, and Yuffie decides that the moment to fight that logic has passed.

But when has that ever stopped her?

“Do it anyway,” Yuffie interrupts her blathering about the construction moogles. “Ask ol’ Scrooge about it. I bet he’d be happy to crunch numbers for a spot in the plaza. Prime real estate, y’know? Just in case.”

Yuffie catches Tifa’s smile just before she hides it. “Maybe I will,” she says. “Just in case.”

~

Scouting means a gigantic backpack that Yuffie has to lug around Hollow Bastion. It makes moving around cumbersome, but it’s still better than Cid over her shoulder telling her she’s doing everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the constant criticism was not something she wanted in her life.

After all, she’s great! The great ninja, Yuffie! Who can do no wro--

“Hey.”

Yuffie turns toward the door as she’s adjusting the straps on the backpack. “Hey Squall!”

“Leon,” he corrects immediately, like a bad habit. He strides into Merlin’s house and hands her a scroll. “Here’s the list of materials we need. Cid and I already checked in and it’s a lot, but just bring back whatever you can handle.”

“Got it, got it!” she says, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “And if the bag gets too heavy, I’ll head back early. No biggie.”

Squall nods. “Okay, good. See you tonight.” Then, after a moment, “Aerith said she’d cook dinner.”

They both exchange looks at that.

“Maybe Tifa can order takeout?” Yuffie suggests. “Or I can grab something from--”

“Cid’s supervising her. He promises he won’t let her mix up the sugar and salt again.”

“Is he sure he wants to take on that kind of responsibility?”

“Apparently.”

Yuffie presses her hands together in prayer. “Please, Leviathan, let dinner go smoothly tonight.”

They nod, a synchronized moment of desperation, before Squall is back to business.

“Anyway, let me know how far you get in collecting what we need,” he says. “Don’t worry about the harder stuff, we can do that together later this week.”

“Aye aye, captain!”

~

Scouting… actually kinda sucks. Yuffie almost wishes she was back on the scaffolding being told the right way to hammer in a nail by an ever-grumpy Cid. But she made this bed, so she will valiantly lay in it and hope to god that she can find another freakin’ Oricalcum.

She twirls her Conformer between her hands, blades whizzing past her ears as she flips it back and forth and debates whether throwing herself down into the Cavern of Remembrance would help her quest for materials at all. (It, by all means, definitely would, but the last time Yuffie jumped down that tunnel, she regretted it immensely and ended up with a minor concussion that Squall would not shut up about. So. There’s that.)

So instead, she goes all the way through the Ravine Trail, busting down Heartless left and right and collecting the spoils like a treasure hunter out for blood.

The Great Maw opens up to her by the end and a hoard of Heartless greets her as always, because there’s always a bunch ready to crawl out of the mountain’s shadows. She’s already out with her Conformer flying in an arc that catches the front lines. It’s a familiar dance that she’s done much too often (since her trips to the castle were becoming a bad habit). But, she enjoys the bit of action it gives her.

Ever since Merlin and Cid figured out a way to protect the streets of Hollow Bastion automatically, there’s been less of a need for her and Squall to go out on patrols to scare them off, which was both disappointing and awesome in equal amounts since… well.

Squall.

Yuffie frowns mid-backflip, throwing her Conformer again, along with a spray of shuriken for good measure before landing graciously on one knee, effectively dissipating the last of the hoard of Heartless into nothing but harmless shadows.

Aw yeah, Yuffie’s still got it.

And then, her PHS rings, killing the victorious moment and interrupting her hummed rendition of the her super cool victory theme.

“‘Sup?”

“Hey.” It’s, undoubtedly, Squall. Probably sitting on some scaffold somewhere holding a wrench the wrong way because he’s dumb. “Where are you?”

“The Great Maw. Though I still think it’s rude that it’s Great. After all, I’m the one who’s--”

“The great ninja, Yuffie. We know,” he says dryly. “Anyway, head back for the day. Aerith insists everyone’s gotta be at the table before we eat and she wants us at six, sharp.”

“What time is it now?”

“Just past five.”

“Cool,” she says. “Cool, cool. I’ll be there. What’s the kitchen like?”

A pause, then, “Haven’t seen it yet, but hopefully not a disaster.”

“Hopefully. Well, see you soon!”

She hangs up before he can say anything more and uses the rest of that silent moment to lament the castle in the distance, the one with winding spires and tilted towers that felt like home in the most twisted of ways.

“Next time,” she says to herself, hefting up the scouting backpack full of shards and materials. “Definitely next time.”


	3. Chapter 3

Yuffie’s bedroom is a closet, with enough room for a bed and a dresser and a stand to keep her weapons stored while she’s asleep. The walls are thin, and she can always hear Squall puttering around the house at the crack of dawn. The whistle of the kettle, the drip of his coffee, the exasperation in his sighs, and the piercing sound of the computer booting up for the day. All interrupting her (misguided) attempt to sleep away the stomach ache that was Aerith’s cooking from the night before.

She buries herself under the worn quilt Merlin pulled out of thin air for her, trying to muffle it all out and get back to ignoring the gurgling in her stomach.

“Hey, Cid?”

The reluctant tone in Squall’s voice makes her lower the quilt just a little.

“Whaddaya want, kid?”

“... What was your world like? Can you remember it?”

Yuffie pulls out the sliding door, just an inch, in time to see Cid scrub the back of his neck with his gloved hand. “Not much anymore. Just know it was a huge mess, like this one. A mess I cared a whole damn lot about. And now it’s gone.”

Neither say more than that for a few minutes, each going through the motions of their daily routines, but finally Cid sighs. “Spit it out.”

“What?”

“What’s the problem? We ain’t gettin’ nowhere if you’re not gonna talk.”

“Nothing.”

Cid scoffs. “It’s never nothing. Not with Yuffie, and not with you.”

Yuffie would take offense to that, but she’s too invested in where this is going. There’s a long silence again, and Yuffie waits with bated breath for the response. She’s made up theories in her head, pestered him about it during patrols in Traverse Town, but he never said a word. His world was a secret he kept tight to his chest, while the rest of them shared their hazy, broken memories because their world was one and the same.

She almost feels bad for him.

“I had amnesia in my world,” Squall says. “That’s all I can remember about it now, and I don’t even know if that’s right. So… I don’t remember anything at all.”

Scratch that. She definitely feels bad for him. Yuffie slides her door shut and rolls over, burrowing into her worn quilt and deciding that maybe, just maybe, she won’t pester him anymore.

~

“Don’t go disappearin’ again,” Cid says, catching Yuffie’s shoulder on her way out of Merlin’s house. Before she can even try to lie her way out, he pushes on, “We’re understaffed for this kind of project as it is, and don’t you want to see this place as more than just a pile of rubble?”

Yuffie wriggles out of his grasp. “Sure I do, but--”

“Squall’s been tellin’ me you keep visiting that old castle.”

Because of course he has. Yuffie grimaces. “He told me to keep an eye on it.”

“Yeah, not two feet on its territory,” Cid says, quirking a brow at her. “This isn’t Wutai, where you can run off to the mountains whenever it gets too tough.”

“Who said anything’s too tough? I’m the great ninja, Yuffie! The White Rose of--”

“Yeah, yeah. Wutai, we know. Anyway, here,” Cid says with a roll of his eyes, throwing a bottle of pills at her. “Swallow a couple, we’re headed out today.”

To Yuffie’s ninja credit, she does not fumble the catch. “Where we going?”

“The Coliseum. You’re scavenging, right? We’ll do it there,” Cid says gruffly, patting her on the shoulder with his scratchy gloves. “With all the trips you’ve been making to the castle, you’re definitely not out of practice, kid.”

“No way! A Great Ninja, out of practice? Pfft.”

Cid’s smile is a lopsided smirk as he sticks a cigarette between his lips. “Alright, I’ll meet you back here in about an hour. I have some business with that damned crazy rich duck about funding a project. The pills should kick in by then.”

“Will do. G’luck!”

The door swings shut behind Cid as he leaves her by herself in their small townhouse. Everyone else has left, but she’s cooped up again with nothing to do but wait. Totally lame. Totally boring. She huffs and stares down at the bottle of pills clenched in her fist.

“Fine,” she mutters to herself. If she’s gonna be bored, she might as well sleep.

A glass of milk and two pills later, Yuffie slides open her closet door and flops onto her mattress. The popcorn ceiling is as uninteresting as ever and Yuffie debates for the nth time what to do about it. Tifa had expressly forbidden her from trying to use her Conformer as a “dangerously cool fan” and, well, since that route was a no-go it now sits on a wall stand at the end of her bed, each of its four points gleaming in the low-light of her closet.

“We’re gonna have some fun today, Conformer. Coliseum adventure, ‘pparently,” she mumbles, rolling over. “According to Cid, anyway. Who knows, he might just drink himself off a scaffold.”

The pills never take long to kick in, and the last thought she has before she drifts off is of the ice cream the old duck’s been selling in the plaza, blue and creamy, salty and sweet.


End file.
